Chance research on the concept of green burials leads one freelancer not just to a years-long writing project, but to a more intimate encounter with the growing practice. In this essay, Ann Hoffner shares her first-hand experience with green burials and the deeper meaning she discovers in them, as well as one tender goodbye in a quiet wood.

With the nation's infrastructure suddenly atop the political agenda, thanks to incoming President Trump, Circle of Blue reporter Brett Walton talks with SEJournal Online about his award-winning series on the neglected risks of septic system pollution, in our latest 'Inside Story' Q&A.

BookShelf

"Future Arctic: Field Notes from a World on the Edge"

By Edward Struzik
Island Press, $22.65

Reviewed by TOM HENRY

The Arctic has a stark beauty. I fell in love with its treeless tundra in 2008, when my newspaper sent me to Greenland for 10 days to research what ultimately became a four-day, nine-story series. I found people there to be sweet and hardy, living on a landscape that is biologically complex and amazing.

Black Belt Citizens Fighting for Health and Justice says the landfill, which has accepted millions of pounds of coal ash from the 2008 Tennessee spill, violates their civil rights. The community surrounding the landfill is predominantly poor and African-American.

Maine passed a law in 2015 that allowed railroads to keep oil-train routing information from the public — over the governor's veto. In the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting's Pine Tree Watchdog, Dave Sherwood reports how the provision was a bait-and-switch.

Based on a variety of data sources, the Center for Effective Government's new map and database shows that "people of color and poor residents are significantly more likely to live near dangerous chemical facilities than white and non-poor residents" in the U.S.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's openness has been a major issue throughout the crisis of contaminated drinking water in Flint, which has caused lead poisoning of some children. One aspect of the openness issue is the ability of agency employees to speak with journalists; another is unfulfilled FOIA requests.